Apr. 13th, 2010

Apr. 13th, 2010

* doomsey found out that the condensor on his car has a leak. It's going to cost $1,000 to replace. (sigh)

* Took the bike in to have some repair work done. The brakes have been squealing for a long time. The tires also need to be filled again.

* And my computer crashed right in the middle of a YouTube video. It didn't even give me the kernel panic warning that said I needed to reboot. No, it stopped and the mouse wouldn't respond. doomsey thinks that either something got corrupted in the last update because of the bad memory or that flash was being buggy. I re-installed everything on my computer and re-installed Flash.

* Called an arborist to come and look at my two ailing pine trees, which seem to have some kind of borer. They'll be stopping by sometime next week to look at all the trees. [Scratch that....they're coming tomorrow]. I'm hoping they can save the pines because they make a good hiding place for birds. And having bug-eating birds hanging around is a good thing considering the fact that my garden is nearby. They'll control whatever likes to nibble on my plants. Also, I'm thinking that, if they can't be saved, then I'll call a tree removal company that will turn them into wood chips. That way, I can at least use the wood chips to control some of the weeds I have growing back there. Keep your fingers crossed that I can save them though, because they are pretty firs and I'm kind of partial to them.

* That brings me to my garden. Last year I had a huge problem with "something" nibbling on my garden. I was weeding and turning over the soil this weekend and disturbed a nest of red ants. I asked my next door neighbor, who is very knowledgeable about gardening and who was out at the time, if they would be a problem. He said that usually ants are a negative. He told me to put some coffee grounds out there and that should kill off a lot of the problem bugs. The caffeine kills the harmful bugs and, at the same time, is good for night crawlers, which make the soil richer. doomsey left me some of his coffee grounds from breakfast this morning-- I can't drink caffeinated coffee-- and I put them out there this afternoon.

* On my way out to the garden, I heard some rustling by the garage. Turned out it was a garter snake who was out sunning himself. He saw me coming and then slid into a crack by the garage. I love garter snakes. Do you think doomsey would get too pissed off if I kept one as a pet? :)

On second thought, scratch that. I would have to feed them crickets and other bugs. Crickets tend to squick me out. I could probably handle mealy worms though...

* The road construction on my way to work is turning people into assholes. I had not one but two people refuse to let me merge onto the expressway. (grumbles) Also, the exit where I usually get off-- which is already very difficult to navigate because you have to move over two lanes in order to get off-- has been made impossible to navigate with all the road horses they put up. I damn near clipped someone trying to figure out where my lane was and how to get off at the exit...in the dark. At first I thought they had narrowed it down to one lane because of the construction. I was wrong. I hope the guy behind me forgives me for the fright I must have given him. :(

So yeah, I think I'm going to get off at a different, much simpler exit from now on. They way they've got it set up makes it kind of dangerous.